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Hippolyte Jason
Doctor Hippolyte Jason, known in his youth as “Pumpkin”, as well as “Hippo” by his grandmother, was the seventh host of Edward Tamaron. After being slain by the Devil Carny, Tamaron's essence fled into the area around Boston, where he jumped into the closest person, who happened to be “Pumpkin”. Although enraged by the feebleness and ugliness of the young boy, Tamaron was not given a chance to gain another host, as Boston was presently under siege by the zombie plague that he had unleashed as Brocelyn Hogarth Brant. He ended up joining with a team of survivors in an attempt to stay alive, but abandoned them to die when Boston was destroyed in a nuclear strike. Moving to Urdellville, Minnesota, he improved the shape of his body and became known as a medical doctor. Secretly, however, he ran a sinister cult out of Daylily Park, which attempted to dominate the world with a number of monsters. All of these attempts failed, and in the body of the Homunculus of Akinos, Jason ended up becoming a servant of the grown up Devil Carny, who had killed him years ago. Despite this, he was again killed in the Devil Carny's final battle, and the events of the battle sent him into a magical whirlwind that stranded him on another world. Biography Childhood, and Tamaron's Arrival Hippolyte Jason was born sometime in the 1970s on Earth-20181. He was rendered an orphan at an early age, and was taken in by his grandmother. A wealthy but weak-willed woman, she not only smothered him but pampered him, resulting in his addiction to sweets and video games, and a tendency to cheat on his homework. Overall, he was an unhealthy child, both physically and mentally, and his appearance as unkempt, fat, and grotesque caused him to be bullied; his round shape earned him the nickname of “Pumpkin”. He often retreated into fantasies where he was a “wizard”—these fantasies eventually became genuine belief, part of a vast coping mechanism. The belief became so strong that his magical aura was altered, giving him actual (albeit weak) mystical powers—namely, a fragile sort of telekinesis. The mythos he created around his “wizard” persona was highly advanced; he believed himself to be an “eyeball monster”, in his “true form”, that could “see infinity” and cast infinite judgment down on those who made him miserable. Those who were nice to him were his “ocular helpers”, literally living severed eyeballs, that served him on his “vision-throne”. The complexity his fantasies enlarged his aura, which ultimately allowed him to become the prey of the wandering and injured Edward Tamaron, who had been jarred loose of his previous host, the President of the United States—returning to his native Boston, Tamaron was looking for anyone ''who could support his presence as a host. In the entire town of Boston, only Jason was a true candidate. In 1992, when Pumpkin was only in high school, he was possessed by the spirit of Tamaron. Strangely enough, possibly due to Tamaron's injuries, and possibly in part due to the strength of Jason's fantasies, the two actually managed to keep up a duel that lasted for several minutes before Tamaron seized control over Jason's physical form. The effort tired him greatly, but he found that physical energy was somewhat beyond him in this new form. Pumpkin's severe lack of exercise left Tamaron's new body sluggish and atrophied. Though he began to work out in an attempt to make using the body more livable, Pumpkin had been borderline diabetic and was morbidly obese. Tamaron was forced to use weekly rituals to make sure he could move around Boston to his wishes. Pumpkin's social standing, or lack thereof, allowed Tamaron to enjoy life as a hermit and get used to this broken form. Rumors spread at his former high school that Pumpkin had committed suicide or eaten himself to death. Jason's grandmother did not care that Pumpkin was no longer attending school, being by this point somewhat senile. During this time of isolation, Jason kept an eye on the news, seeing those who had killed him had been gunned down by the Secret Service—though the Devil Carny, his true killer, had already been born. He made it one of his new missions to find and possess, or else destroy, the Carny. However, remains of the Brant Administration still haunted Jason in the first few weeks of his existence. He learned that though many of the zombies he had unleashed as President had been destroyed (along with almost all of the Hounds of the Moon), several hundred remained, and were currently located in the McGee Energy Arena for scientific study. He decided to allow fate to keep them there until he could restore his body and build up support to engage in combat with the Devil Carny. He would not be given this option, however; a security breach at the Arena caused the zombies to escape and flood into Boston. Tamaron was caught off-guard, not sensing this incident; his powers were still weak, even several months after the transfer into Jason. The zombies were much swifter than his reaction—within less than a day after their escape, the undead monsters had slaughtered more than half of the population of Boston. Martial law was declared on the city by the new President, and casualties rose every day. Of course, the zombies were also capable of turning their victims into more zombies, making the situation critical. One day, a group of strangers sought refuge in the Jason family apartment. They included a fire fighter named Beardsley, a police officer named George Calpo, and a child known simply as Light Fixture. Together, the four of them would form the Second Boston Group, a team that Pumpkin would secretly grow to loath. Surviving the Apocalypse Tamaron quickly learned that most of the members of this new Boston Group were badly unhinged by the events of what was being called the “zombie apocalypse”. After a few days of staying in his apartment, the Group members pushed Jason's grandmother into an oven, with the intent of eating her flesh, to show that they were more civilized than the zombies, who ate uncooked flesh. He actually participated in the cannibalism, as he had begun hating the woman for her smothering of Pumpkin. He found the taste of human flesh to not truthfully be that bad, though he would not indulge it that frequently following the incident. With Pumpkin's grandmother dead, the Group, including Pumpkin, decided to abandon the apartment. They ended up looting it and the building that surrounded it, intending to use whatever they could to escape the city. The few remaining TV reports that came in showed that the military had surrounded the city, trying to prevent anyone who had contact with the zombies, believing that the zombies carried a sort of plague that could spread; Tamaron realized that he was responsible for his current situation, this imprisonment within the city limits. He would have to manipulate the Boston Group into agents who could breach the containment, as well as fight the zombies—their madness would make them easily controllable. Though he would pretend to be soft, weak, out-of-shape Pumpkin, they would, as so many had been before, be his pawns towards greater goals. The influx of zombies had caused huge traffic jams that plugged up the town—most cars, motorcycles, and generally vehicles had been knocked out of commission. However, some still had functional engines and most still had some amounts of gasoline. Stripping parts of motorcycles allowed the Group to build their Carpool Pool Car, assembled out of four V8 engines, shipping truck tires, a Jeep steering column, and many other parts, with the main body being a pool table. The front of the Car was mounted with four lawn gnomes, whose spiked hats could smash through zombies with relative ease. Using the Pool Car, the Group navigated around Boston, acquiring weapons, supplies, and information on the zombies. Regarding the latter, they never seemed to learn much, though Tamaron of course knew that they were the products of conjuration. They eventually stockpiled enough weapons to break through the blockade around town, and prepared to do so immediately. They had spent about three weeks inside Boston after the apocalypse, during which time Tamaron grew to hate them—their insanity had begun to wear on him, to the point where he sought their deaths. He would not have to wait long, as the military was now prepared to initiate a nuclear strike on Boston, having seen that 98% of its populace had been transformed or slain by zombies. Word of this reached the Boston Group right before they were prepared to escape. They took off on the Pool Car, but their weight was slowing it down (Tamaron, ironically, refused to acknowledge Pumpkin's weight in the ordeal). Tamaron had been looking for a chance to kill them anyway, and pushed them off. This proved to be salvation. He barely escaped the edge of the atomic explosion—within the blink of an eye, Boston, as well as the legacy of its first Group and the members of its second, was vaporized. Pumpkin was not unhappy to see the city go—though its Earth-Alpha counterpart was his hometown, this form of Boston had hosted much of the misery he had experienced on Earth-20181; and though he suspected that Thomas J. Carlson and Welshie were still alive, he saw the deaths of the Second Boston Group as a good compromise for victory over the first. Now he just needed to figure out what to do with his life, having escaped the consequences of his previous one. After wandering for awhile in the Pool Car, he found that McGee Manor had survived the explosion—though it was in disrepair from years of abandonment. He used it as a base for several months, during which he used Snaps McGee's old exercise equipment in an attempt to slim himself down. The three weeks he spent running from zombies had helped him in this regard and his health was much improved. However, after his stay in the mansion, he found that he needed a change of setting, away from the East Coast area. He then decided to see where the Pool Car would lead him. Urdellville Tamaron wandered across the country in his strange vehicle, in a manner that was in fact aimless. He considered, in a similarly arbitrary manner, heading north for a change in climate, and in doing so came across Minnesota. On a whim, he decided to stay in the state, and headed towards its capital of Urdellville. Tamaron was perhaps drawn in by his amazement that Urdellville was now Minnesota's capital; on Earth-Alpha, it had been Saint Paul, with Urdellville being only a tiny suburb. Somehow, the change in history on Earth-20181 had resulted in a reverse situation. The Saint Paul suburb of Urdellville was poor and impoverished next to the rest of the city. Minneapolis, it seemed, still existed, and so Urdellville and Minneapolis were thus the “new” Twin Cities. Cementing his decision to stay in the Cities area was the fact that many young people in the Twin Cities area were interested in the occult. He decided to make them into his new Order of Draco, though he did not know what he would use them for once they had been assembled. He only needed a way to draw them in—simply confronting them in the street and asking them to join a cult would not work. He decided then that he could make Hippolyte Jason into a doctor, and subtly recruit members of his Order from his patients. It was as good of a plan as any, he realized; and he was feeling capricious anyway, perhaps brought on by a sudden second wind of joy brought in by the destruction of Boston. Overall, it is worth pointing out that some sort of ecstasy dominated Tamaron's life as Jason. He often performed his work happily, and was not easily bored. He engaged in poetic activities often, and once he moved into his base in Daylily Park (see below) he enjoyed the natural surroundings around him. He was even content to allow intended sacrifices captured by the Order to escape him sometimes, which contradicted his earlier desire to destroy enemies at any cost. He also sincerely gained a fondness for the medical practice that he set up, though it is likely he never practiced medicine again in his existence. In later reflection, he would not be sure what had caused such impulsive feelings, though he wondered if it was perhaps a sort of “midlife crisis”. He also contemplated “corruption” stemming from Jason's physical form itself, and wondered if any of the souls he consumed in the course of his possessions perhaps had bonded partially to his own soul. There may have been some credence to this theory, as it remains possibly that Pumpkin, in fact, survived the takeover process (see “Trivia” below). It could also have been his recent dedication to physical fitness. Upon reaching Minnesota, he eventually made his physical form virtually unrecognizable. The former “Pumpkin” was now actually somewhat underweight, and even slightly muscular. The improvement of health may have positively affected Tamaron's mood. All the same, Tamaron did not acquire a true medical education in his striving to open a practice. Instead, he began to attend medical school and used his telepathy to absorb massive amounts of knowledge from his professors and fellow students. He then used this telepathy to convince the heads of the university to allow him to graduate early. He received certification and managed to pull together enough money to set up his private office. He began to take in low-income patients and treated them with genuine skill. Along the way, however, he was secretly probing them mentally to see if they had any magical or occult talent that could be used or encouraged. By 2000, a little over seven years since the destruction of Boston, the Order of Draco had been rebuilt from its total destruction in 1922. The original Order had been long forgotten, and those who did remember were assured that the name was mere coincidence. However, Tamaron, actually caring about his doctor's office, urged the group to gather in other places besides his residence. As a result, they ended setting up a small camp in the dense woods of Daylily Park, at the edge of Urdellville. Here, they attempted to gain more power, with Tamaron remembering often the research he had compiled, as Brocelyn Brant, on Gekkos, a Snake God. Gekkos remained at the backs of the minds of the entire Order as many, tempted greatly by the amount of power the Order had given them, began to desire immortality. Whether or not Gekkos could grant immortality, Tamaron did not know—but he wanted to appease his followers at all costs, and he figured perhaps, if he desired it at the time, he could negotiate with Gekkos to allow him to return Earth-Alpha. In 2003, Gekkos was contacted through an aperture between Earth and the Hell dimension. The entity revealed that it could be released and could, in fact, grant immortality to humans. However, it would require human sacrifices, as the astral forms of those dedicated to the summoning would be sent to the Hell dimension, where Gekkos could use them as slaves. The Order agreed to bring the sacrifices if it meant eternal life. This decision on behalf of the Order left Tamaron in a strange state. He realized he cared nothing for the actual offer, only the thrill of the “chase” towards the summoning. He viewed the Order as his “children” and his desire to please them as “parental”. This would only further his notion that his strange happiness was born out of the “mid-life crisis” he was experiencing in over three hundred years of life. Over the course of several months, a couple dozen visitors to Daylily were murdered by the cultists. One of them was a young woman, whose murder was reported in the [[''Daily Times]]. The killings became so widespread that a massive police investigation, led by Maine transfer Anton Makepeace, took place. Many Order members were arrested or died evading arrest. By this point, their grip on the area was so strong that the handful caught or killed were seen as of no consequence; however, the reports of stories of “cultists in the woods” became so prevalent that the forests of Daylily were avoided for some time. As such, few potential sacrifices fell into the cult's clutches. Tamaron was strangely content with this. He was happy to continue practicing medicine, believing it to be one of the true ancient arts, alongside the occult. The mysteries of the human body were complicated even beside the great wonders he had decoded with magic. In some ways, his control over magic at an early age resulted in its powers becoming dull for him with time. Also, the forests of Daylily oddly calmed him, and it had been some time since he had felt truly relaxed. His desires concerning world domination and the torture of his enemies had worn him down mentally, and so this current Order of Draco served as a release from that. He made sure to remind himself that soon, he would return to his plans of conquest, but for now there should be no talks of such things. Around 2008, activity in the Park picked up again, and as such the Order began to kill again. These murders were not investigated this time around, as the Order was quick to hide or destroy the corpses. Some rumors occurred and missing persons reports were filed, but it never went beyond that. Despite his apparent peacefulness, Tamaron proved here that he was still a swift, efficient killer. Slowly but surely, the cult gained enough power to summon Gekkos. But by the summer of 2009, they only needed a handful more. It was here that three campers, Trevor Dewitt, Paul Beckman, and Wesley Burgess, decided to take a trip out into the woods. Tamaron sensed their presence and allowed them to come deep into the forest before they would be killed. As they made their ingress, however, enough sacrifices had been attained to release Gekkos. The Order members did so, but suddenly found out they had been tricked; Gekkos had desired to make living ''people into his slaves, rather than the souls of the sacrifices. It took the work of the entire Order to restrain it, and prevent it from dragging them all into the Hell dimension. The experience was spontaneously sobering for Tamaron, as he realized that he had allowed the Order to summon Gekkos absentmindedly, as if they were simply letting a dog outside, when in fact magic ''did ''have its perils. Gekkos was contained to a small field that the campers stumbled into, and using its power, Gekkos caused Wesley to burst into flame, killing him. Additionally, Gekkos had apparently caused Paul to vanish from existence earlier. Gekkos then tried to kill the rest of the Order from afar, but the barrier that the cultists installed around the field contained it. Tamaron realized he would have to banish the Snake God as soon as possible. Tamaron decided to deal with Gekkos after he had stopped the remaining witness, who happened to be Trevor. Trevor almost escaped the park the next morning, but his mother had called the police, since he and the others had not returned at the appointed time. Sheriff Makepeace, who had investigated the cult earlier, arrived, but as he was about to rescue Trevor, Tamaron managed to reach the two of them. He killed Makepeace with a rock before slashing Trevor's throat. Although it was a sloppy job (investigations would follow for the disappearances of all those involved), it would at least patch the activities of the Order for the time being. Tamaron next worked a massive ritual to dismiss Gekkos—during which the god lashed out and killed three of the cultists. It was a good price to pay to avoid complete destruction from the hostile deity. The raising of Gekkos shattered some of Tamaron's peacefulness, and he suddenly began to reconsider his dreams of world domination. The fact that he had summoned what was basically a god nearly without thinking (though with the great aid of others), in contrast to when he had done so with relatively great effort, showed to him that his power was growing—and, indeed, it was. He believed then, once more, that it was his place to use his power to gain supreme power over the world, and perhaps even the universe. Yet some of his peace still remained, and he decided to use more “subtle” ploys to reach this end—that is to say, his heart was not truly in the work. By the Order's suggestion, he decided to at least try to realize this by continuing to use the Hell dimension; the Order, which was swiftly becoming more assertive in Tamaron's life than Tamaron himself, believed the Hell dimension to truly be Hell itself. The decision to work this was enhanced not only by Tamaron's “parental” instincts, but the increasing and curious forcefulness of the desires of the Order's members. At the end of 2009, Tamaron began to use his power to pull in creatures from the Hell dimension, which he referred to as his “freaks”. He was unable to explain ''why ''he called these creatures “freaks”, given that the phrase was not in his ordinary vocabulary, but he shrugged it off at the time. Yet as the events built up, Tamaron began to sense that he was being quietly manipulated, by a powerful telepathic presence; but every time he came close to sensing what it was, it faded away from him. This upset him but he pushed onward, for the sake of the Order. Ultimately, however, the sudden usage of misplaced “carnival talk” by Tamaron ''was being subtly influenced—namely, by a chronal echo involving his future alliance with the Devil Carny. In fact, the Order's assertive behavior was a result of the Carny's influence as well. As will be described below, the Carny had believed that the Gekkos incident was “predestined” like a “scene from a film”, just as Tamaron's reach into the Hell dimension was—and so he influenced the Order, both concurrently with the events and from the viewpoint of the future, to force them to happen. The happenings resulted in shifts in Tamaron's personality beyond his genuine complacency, and altered the speech patterns of those involved, to fit what the Carny viewed as his “film scenes”. The Carny lived time backwards, experiencing his death as his birth, but “remembering” his chronological past; and so he telepathically coerced his 2009 self into creating the scenes by altering the personas of those involved, causing the scenes themselves to become effectively meaningless time paradoxes. Tamaron, the Order, and others who survived the “scenes” became more and more disturbed as time went on as a side effect of the spontaneity and lack of meaning in the events. The “scene” that resulted from Tamaron being forced to open the gateway to the Hell dimension involved one of the “freaks”—a skeleton—to escape onto Earth. The skeleton attacked Tamaron and managed to injure him enough to escape the part of Daylily where the opening ritual was taking place. The skeleton killed several people until Sheriff Spencer—the replacement for Sheriff Makepeace—tracked the skeleton via a radiation imprint it left on its victims. The radiation, similar to that left over from nuclear bomb tests, could be followed with a Geiger counter—Spencer nicknamed the particular Hell-beast “the Atomic Skeleton”. Using a prototype device designed to command controlled pulses of dark energy, he sealed the Skeleton in an antimatter universe, effectively ending the menace. Tamaron did not care too much about this, having felt uncomfortable about the whole affair; as mentioned, he sensed he was not in control, and considered the incident to not make much sense from any viewpoint. Reeling from the uncomfortable sensations of what he slowly realized was mind control, he attempted to shield his brain from telepathic intrusion and eventually succeeded; thus he was able to return to his calmness, and was also able to keep his Order under control as well. However, even in the midst of his “retirement”, he began to search for the mysterious force that had almost controlled him. No major events happened for nearly three years due to this search, due to a new feeling that had infiltrated Tamaron: fear. In earlier lives, Tamaron had been afraid rarely. He had been scared of his father as a child, and had also been somewhat afraid of Cyrus Sincodemius, his former Master. When he had been overwhelmed by beings like Ska and the Thing in the Pit, he had experienced insanity that had filled him with terror as well. But now, for once, one of the “greater powers” of the cosmos seemed to be reaching out for him first, before he had a chance to do anything to instigate such an attack. He realized that as he did become more powerful, some of the more powerful creatures—some occasionally referred to as gods—would start to challenge him. His path towards rule would not be so easy, and he considered himself foolish for not having considered this factor earlier. Eventually, however, he did learn that in fact his aggressor was the Devil Carny, who had grown up and was now an intangible presence of great strength. In an attempt to stop the Carny, Tamaron tried many plans, most of which failed. However, he reached once more into Hell, and in 2011 released a creature called the Devil Skull. The Skull was actually a servant of Gekkos that attempted to bring its master more soul-slaves. It ended up consuming hundreds of people in the British Isles, eventually eating much of the landmass of Ireland, Scotland, and England. Due to intervention from German scientists (who worked with technology developed by discoveries that Tamaron had made in the form of Karl Gerber), the Cosmic Command Die was used to deactivate the Devil Skull's “brain”, causing its enormous corpse to occupy the landmass it had devoured. Though not fertile for farming, the Skull was named New Britain and was colonized by survivors of the devastation. Thus Tamaron implanted another terrible historical deviation from the timeline of his homeworld of Earth-Alpha—he was responsible for the destruction of Britain and thousands of its inhabitants. Following this stroke, however, Tamaron only met with more failure, and plunged deeply into research. By the spring of 2012, Tamaron, as Doctor Jason, had decided to move the Order of Draco into position for a new bid against the Devil Carny. During the three years of warfare, he had learned of a creature called the Homunculus of Akinos, which was an immortal “blank slate” creature possessing intense strength, both physically and mystically. He told the neophytes of the Order that both he and the Homunculus were servants of Satan; recreating the Order as a Satanist group over the course of a few months, and painting the Devil Carny as a false and feeble Antichrist, he planned to summon the Homunculus, and use it as a host with which he would crush the Carny. Cultists of the Homunculus In an attempt to “remake” the Order of Draco for the battle against the Carny, Jason acquired several new recruits. One of them was a young psychic named Lia, whom he used to make prophecies concerning the summoning of the Homunculus. She and Tamaron ended up becoming lovers briefly, though it remains unknown if Tamaron was truly romantically attracted to her. Another was Skok, a former scientist who had apparently mastered invisibility to take revenge on those who had mocked him. However, his invisibility serum tapped into a realm called Beta-Space or “the Unscene”, where a creature known as “Dark Cloak” lived. Exposure to Beta-Space's energies resulted in Skok, upon providing the antidote to his serum (found in human blood), becoming severely deformed and insane. Dark Cloak ended up imprisoning Skok within its presence, until it was discovered by Tamaron. It turned out that Dark Cloak was the embodiment of the hauntological energies left behind in Daylily Park by Gekkos. Both Dark Cloak and Skok joined the Order; the former allowing itself to be studied by Tamaron (who believed that it may have been the King of Time in disguise), the latter as “Lord Skok the Bloody Torturer”, who performed the killings during any rituals involving human sacrifice. Many sacrifices were made to call forth the Homunculus. Lia began to sense that her lover was actually not “Doctor Jason”, but an ancient psychic parasite, whose motives could not be trusted. She also sensed that the cult did not worship Satan, which caused her to trust “Jason” even less. Evidently, however, she trusted him enough to reveal that the final sacrifice to “Satan” would be that of a man named “The Dreamer”, who would have many nightmares about the Homunculus, whom he believed to be, curiously enough, the Frankenstein's Monster. The Dreamer, who had manifested as a normal man named Jerry, would eventually try to discover the cult, and they would then have to kill him to finalize Tamaron's transfer into the Homunculus. Tamaron planned to do this, only requiring two more sacrifices before he would have to kill The Dreamer. At a celebration hosted by Jason, Lia ended up publicly revealed that she no longer trusted the Doctor; and with this, he decided to make her into the penultimate sacrifice. At the next ritual, Lord Skok executed a man, and Tamaron prepared to personally kill Lia. However, during the proceedings she had escaped, and tried to telepathically warn The Dreamer that the cult was targeting him. She managed to succeed before Tamaron stabbed her to death. The Homunculus ended up breaching through the dimensions, and Tamaron immediately transferred his astral self into it. However, he knew that the link would be unstable until he tracked down and killed Jerry. Using the Homunculus' inherent powers, he found Jerry and revealed his identity before killing him. With that, Jason's hold over the Homunculus was complete; Tamaron now had possession of an incredibly powerful, immortal host. Over eight years, Jason, in the form of the Homunculus, managed the Order of Draco peacefully, only killing or disabling those that entered the cult's domain in Daylily Park. Studies investigating the whereabouts of the Devil Carny could only be completed psychically, but the Carny cloaked himself, making the search efforts fruitless. In his strange contentment, Tamaron decided that if conflict would arise, it would happen the way it began, with the Carny striking first. In 2020, eight years after Tamaron possessed the Homunculus, the Carny did indeed strike. The battle was brief, with the Carny's power easily crushing that of Tamaron, and indeed that of the entire Order of Draco. Several Order members were driven mad; others were incinerated. Even the Homunculus of Akinos was no match for the Carny, given that the Carny was Akinos' son, and the Homunculus was merely one of the deity's underlings. Tamaron did manage to strike a deal with the Carny at the point of his regrettable defeat: he offered to serve the Carny in exchange for the survival of his Order. The Carny agreed, admitting that Tamaron was a valuable asset. The Order was allowed to disband and live in peace, with only their leader remaining “active”. The Battle for Earth The Devil Carny slowly gathered an army to serve as his minions during the coming war. Tamaron was among them, as were Lord Skok and Dark Cloak. The Carny also restored the Atomic Skeleton from the antimatter universe, and also called up a number of creatures known as Zompires. The Zompires were the artificial creatures of an ancient city known as Wal-un-Porga, which had been founded by Europeans who had crossed over into the Minnesotan area. Years prior, a man had stolen a “lucky coin” from the ruins of Wal-un-Porga (by accident, as the ruins were long since unidentifiable), and had been pursued by the Zompires—he had been forced to destroy them, but some evidently still survived. The Zompires formed the main “infantry” of the Carny's “army”. With around fifty Zompires, the Skeleton, and the former members of the Order of Draco, there only needed to be a declaration of war. The war manifested in the form of a mystery. The Carny used his power to resurrect the corpses of Wesley and Trevor (the campers whom Tamaron had slain), as well as Sheriff Makepeace. The three had no idea how or why they had returned, but those involved, including Sheriff Spencer, wanted to know. As the media went into chaos over the return of the eleven-year lost murder victims, the Carny next resurrected Paul, the other camper, but made him into a host. It was the Carny's intent for “Paul” to seem as if he knew all the answers, and use what information he supposedly had to infiltrate meetings of police officers and kill them with magic. Paul's friends were suspicious of him, and their suspicions were confirmed when “Paul” ended up unleashing a magical explosive at a press conference where much of the Urdellville police had gathered. Only the two campers and Sheriff Makepeace survived; the latter was reinstated as Sheriff, as Spencer had been killed during the eruption. With the police force of Urdellville out of commission, the Zompires, led by the Skeleton, Dark Cloak, Skok, and Tamaron, began to wage war on the city. Tamaron, as “Doctor Jason”, used his Homunculus body to kill many people personally. In total, the army ended up slaughtering hundreds; so much so that the city began to be evacuated, until the Devil Carny, as Paul, ordered that the city back down immediately, with no military intervention. The President of the United States agreed, not wanting more senseless deaths. The entire city was converted into a slave camp, with the workers trying to build a massive Temple that resembled a circus tent. The Temple would serve as a battery that would destroy all humans and begin to replace the Earth's ecosystem with one more similar to the Hell dimension. Tamaron initially had no problem with this, as he was not human and thus would survive the fatal pulse. However, he desired to use the Temple for himself, as he could possibly use it to power a portal back to Earth. Aiding this concept was the fact that Temple would be powered by the Cosmic Command Die, which had earlier stymied Tamaron when he called upon the Devil Skull. A prototype version of the Die had been used to seal the Atomic Skeleton in the antimatter universe; perhaps it could assist one in interuniversal travel. The Carny's rule of Earth proved to be short lived, even though his Temple was mostly completed. The Capitol Building had been demolished to be replaced with the Temple, and so some of the basements below the Capitol were still accessible. Trevor, Wesley, and Sheriff Makepeace breached the Temple in this way, and began to fight their way to the chamber where the Command Die was being held. When they did enter, having killed Lord Skok, they found that Dark Cloak, the Skeleton, Tamaron, and “Paul” had gathered in the Die chamber. They tried to reason with Paul, but the Carny revealed that only Paul's corpse had survived; in reality, their friend was truly dead. This enraged the trio, and during the ensuing struggle Sheriff Makepeace knocked the Command Die out of its holder. It was here that all assembled learned that true function of the Die. Like a real die, each of its six sides had a different effect, similar to the powers of Captain Cosmos' Rod of Wonder. It had been luck alone that had decided the fate of the Devil Skull; the Die had fallen on a side which dictated the “destruction of Evil”. The side it fell on this time, however, was less biased. A magical whirlwind opened up that destroyed all those present, sending Dark Cloak and the Devil Carny out into parts unknown—probably, Tamaron later figured, to their deaths. The whirlwind's force tore the Homunculus of Akinos apart, sending the Tamaron Entity into the naked void. Though he desperately attempted to maintain his hold on Earth-20181, he was transmitted into another universe, effectively ending his life as Doctor Jason. Aftermath Following his death and rebirth, Tamaron continued to observe Earth-20181 through divination. His last known contact with this Earth was when he witnessed the Sun of Universe-20181 go nova—the Earth was destroyed, along with the rest of the solar system. He noted that this occurred in 2070, possibly due to Multiversal disruptions caused by the fuschium whirlwind that brought him to Earth-20181 in the first place. He was somewhat saddened by the destruction of this Earth, having spent almost half of his life on it, and having observed how exotic it was compared to other worlds; but this was eclipsed by a desire to return to his homeworld of Earth-Alpha, which he still believed to be the “purest” Earth. Personality and Traits When Tamaron became Hippolyte Jason, he was briefly confused and angered by the unhealthiness of his host. He was forced to retreat from the rest of the world and deal with a condescending old woman as his only companion for several months. His anger, both over his situation and his defeat, came around full circle when he was forced by circumstance to be a member of the Second Boston Group. He betrayed them the first chance he got, which, coupled with the destruction of Boston, pleased him greatly. Somehow, this triggered an almost euphoric peace in him which he sustained for much of his remaining life. The euphoria may have also been indicative of Jason's health after a lengthy exercise period, however, or even a mental crisis on Tamaron's behalf concerning his immortality. He began to act in an arbitrary fashion, settling randomly on living in Urdellville, Minnesota, though the spontaneity of this may have been based on the fact that Saint Paul was the capitol of Minnesota on Earth-Alpha, rather than Urdellville. Regardless of his peacefulness, he recreated the Order of Draco, and did in fact murder several people, but only to appease the Order, whom he viewed as his eager but violent children. Tamaron's complacency was capitalized on by the Devil Carny, who caused him to act in certain ways to fill in “memories” the Carny had. It was not the first time that Tamaron was psychically violated, but it was the first time he ever considered himself to be “mind controlled”. The experience unsettled him from his peace and caused him to seek out ways to defeat his foe. During this time, he, in a way, restored the Earth-20181 Order to its roots, by having its ranks include non-humans as well. He also ended up bringing in Lia, who became his lover. The nature of the relationship between Lia and Tamaron remains unclear. It is unknown if, in his subdued state, he actually allowed himself to have romantic or sexual feelings for another person that were not in the name of violence or manipulation. His swift betrayal of Lia, and hers of him, seems to indicate that the two were not very close emotionally, and so the relationship may have been primarily sexual in nature. In this case, it indicates Tamaron's slow change from an asexual being—though one of circumstance, rather than legitimate sexuality—to one capable of possessing such relationships. It is possible as well that his relationship with Lia was meant to make him seem more passionate, something he would need in a supposedly Satanic cult. Tamaron never lost his craving for power, victory, immortality, or escape back to Earth-Alpha, and he remained a convincing liar and uncaring murderer. He demonstrated all of these factors when he began and after he took possession of the Homunculus of Akinos. Though he did show mercy—asking his Order to be spared in exchange for his service to the Devil Carny—he rather easily slew dozens of innocent people during the assault on Urdellville. He was also able of convincing the Devil Carny—one of the most powerful psychics in the Multiverse—that he was on his side, even though he had disdain for the creature, based on how he had met a previous death at his hands, and how he had threatened him and his Order. Tamaron's peaceful nature faded after this death, and inverted back on itself to another extreme. As Brooder Nebel, he lost his patience and gave in to savagery, using brute force to slaughter hundreds for almost no reason. This suggests a further erosion of sanity in Tamaron brought on by his long life, his drug abuse, and his many emotional problems. His mental instability would cause him to often spend time heavily reflecting on his life; as Jason, this was a peaceful, quiet examination, while as Nebel, it was one full of hatred, anger, and regret. Trivia * According to the Author's Notes, Pumpkin's soul was not dispersed (unlike the other hosts of the Tamaron Entity) for reasons unknown, and Tamaron did not destroy his body upon transferring into the Homunculus. Apparently his soul was only dormant within his body, and he returned to life, dealing with the shock of his sudden aging rather quickly. From there, he ended up fleeing to Australia to battle a witch. Jenkins has not yet properly explained why these events are so important, but presumably they will appear in a later volume. * If the above detail is in fact canon, an interesting detail arising with the possible survival of former Boston Group member Potato. As also suggested by the Author's Notes, Potato was rescued by a small group of skeletons around 1992, with him having survived being abandoned in Antarctica this whole time. Believing the Boston Group to have still been in Australia—having been unaware of the passage of time, perhaps having gone insane or been in some sort of suspended animation—he traveled there, where, believing himself to be pursued by the Vine Monster the Group fought in Antarctica, he disguised himself as a man named “Potamus Tato”. Jenkins suggests that this would lead to a team-up between Jason and Potato. * As readers can see from the split links above, the mystical whirlwind that sent the Tamaron Entity away from Earth-20181 may have either sent him to Earth-Kuru, where he became Francis Ghibourkei; or, it could have sent him to Earth-13151518, where he became Brooder Nebel. The former options depends upon the canonical status of Yaubus Redford's Kuru, or, the Zombies in the Life of Mocata Multiverse. * The Author's Notes go on to reveal that the character of Doctor Jason was borrowed, with permission from the director, from three films shot by an unknown person. The films were apparently entitled Spooky Skeleton Geckos from Outer Space, The Freaks from Hell, and Cultists of Frankenstein; Jenkins claims that the plots of the films were written down wholesale in The Life of Mocata. Since copies of the film currently cannot be located, it is unknown if there are any important discrepancies between these films and the novel. The sections involving Jason's life as “Pumpkin”, however, are from a previous original story by Jenkins, which was added to this mix as part of the Reunion Project. * The Devil Carny's manipulation of Tamaron, with his belief in his “film scenes”, is a reference to Jason's appearances and origins in film. In this instance, the films themselves take place not only as plot points, but as metaphorical “films” directly. Sources and Appearances * The Life of Mocata, Volume III ''(mentioned in ''Volume IV)